NASA’s plan to conduct a manned mission to Mars is scheduled to take one giant leap forward on Thursday morning with the maiden test flight of the Orion spacecraft which will be used to transport astronauts to the Red Planet.

NASA is making steady progress on its Orion spacecraft, completing several milestones this week at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for the capsule's first trip to space in December.

NASA engineers and contractors have successfully completed the Orion Launch Abort System (LAS) tower, marking a milestone that puts NASA one step closer to sending Orion 3,600 miles into space on the uncrewed Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission, scheduled to launch in September 2014.

A pivoted catch designed to fall into a notch on a ratchet wheel so as to allow movement in only one direction (e.g. on a windlass or in a clock mechanism), or alternatively to move the wheel in one direction.